Rhi-Peating Swings (With @sdrhiCG)

08.14.2013

By:Rhiona Sullivan

Foreword

Get it? Fore-word? So, I felt this blog needed an introduction. It has a point, I promise. But you’re not going to get it from the first blog. Blog 2 or 3, probably… Blog 4, absolutely. So here it is. The foreword to the most enlightening, goodhearted golf blog you’ll ever read. (Too much? We’ll see.)

Most of y’all know me. If you work at Callaway, I am the go-to girl for all things media and advertising related (+ a bunch more) for both Callaway and Odyssey. Let’s just say, I get stuff done. If you’re one of my friends on Twitter (@sdrhiCG), you might know me as the Marketing Warrior Princess, Princess of the Pirate Ship, Ace, Rhi, the Silent Assassin, or any other of the hundreds of nicknames I’ve picked up along the way.

In the past year, I’ve literally talked to hundreds of you. Either by e-mail, direct message, text message, tweets, on the phone and even in person!! I like to drop ship love in the form of t-shirts, coins, bomb patches and much more… So I thought, what better way to talk to you all than to start a blog? This isn’t your ordinary blog. Or a crazy, rant-filled blog like Harry Arnett, SVP of Marketing, does – yes, our SVP blogs and rants, a ton.

This one is super specific. This one will be all about my love-hate-love relationship with golf. How I got into it. How we broke up, how we got back together, how we broke up to never, ever get back together again. All the songs I wish I wrote… (sorry, you guys know I love Taylor Swift so I got a little carried away there).

Anyway, hope you like it. Let me know what you think, even if you hate it. Just remember to be nice. Unlike the game of golf, I can always lash back at you! Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

The Beginning

I kind of fell into my job here at Callaway; probably the luckiest, most rewarding fall I’ve ever made in my life.

It was January 2008 and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d signed up to work for a company that would ultimately lead me to an undiscovered passion, and a love for a game that is equal parts satisfaction and frustration.

I didn’t grow up playing golf. In fact, my first experience with the game was an utter disaster. Picture this…

This is me at 8…you know, so you can really picture it.

8-year-old me on a driving range with my uncle, cousins and brother. I’m attempting to hit golf balls when out of nowhere a golf ball flies up and tags me in the elbow.

It’s painful. I’m not equipped to handle the pain. In shock and crying tears only a startled 8-year-old could produce, I spent the rest of the afternoon tucked away in the clubhouse with an icepack. I vowed never to play golf again.

… Author’s Note: I told this story many times over the course of the last 5 years and it occurred to me as I started this blog that I had absolutely no idea whether it was true, or just a dream I’d had when I was younger.

So, I called my mom.

Her response, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

At this point, mild panic sets in. Have I been lying to all my friends and co-workers for years about my early hatred of golf? Where did this memory come from? Am I really that old that I can’t tell memories from dreams any longer? Luckily for me, my cousin, Chris, remembers pretty much everything that’s ever happened not only in his life but also his family’s. So, I sent him a text…

Rhi: When we were little, did you accidentally hit me with a golf ball in the elbow while at a club with your Dad? Or am I making stuff up?

Chris: What the heck are you talking about? It is possible and would have been at Singing Hills. Sounds like something I would do…

Rhi: I vaguely remember this happening. You topped a golf ball and it flew up, hit me in the elbow… I had to go get ice from the clubhouse. But I could be wrong.

Chris: No, I remember that. It was Singing Hills.

This is my cousin, Chris, and I at our high school graduation. He is exactly 8 days older than me.

So, flash forward 20 years and I am working at the best golf equipment company in the industry (I can say that because it’s my opinion and I believe it to be true)! And… (deep breaths) I am a TERRIBLE golfer.

I’m pretty sure my childhood incident had scarred me. I was terrified to actually pick up a club and give it a go.

This is Stevie, he’s the 7-iron I learned to hit golf balls on. Yes, he’s a 2007 X Forged Iron. He’s my lucky club and is still in my bag to this day. I won him in a bet (more on that another time).

Luckily, working at a golf company comes with perks. Perks in the form of really good golfers that love to hit the driving range after work. I started slowly. Joining people here and there for “lessons” on the range.

At the office, I started devouring golf in-between phone calls. Google became my best friend and I learned about golf so rapidly in my first year it seemed as though I was on pace to be an expert in no time.

But alas, it was a crash course and by the middle of 2009 I’d crashed hard. Golf sucked again. It wasn’t for me. I wasn’t improving. My lack of skills were a source of embarrassment and I didn’t even want my closest of co-workers to see how awful I was.

Golf and me were O-V-E-R. Big time.

Well, that’s what I thought at the time. What’s that saying? If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.

Come back soon to find out if golf and me were as O-V-E-R as I thought.